


lights in different colors

by choomchoom



Series: angsty driftrod flashfic [4]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Eye Scream, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, M/M, classic enemies are imprisoned by aliens and fall in tragic love scenario, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 12:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21632926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choomchoom/pseuds/choomchoom
Summary: Deadlock and Hot Rod meet in adjacent cells.
Relationships: Drift | Deadlock/Hot Rod, Drift | Deadlock/Rodimus
Series: angsty driftrod flashfic [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1530833
Comments: 10
Kudos: 90





	lights in different colors

**Author's Note:**

> For a twitter prompt, "desperate kisses". I ended up with....a lot of angst and a little bit of kissing...

Deadlock had been sure he was going to die here before Hot Rod had arrived.

He’d fought at first, of course. He’d fought when they’d first tossed him in this cell, whenever a guard made the mistake of standing too close, and all that he could throughout the day they’d dragged him back out of his cell to strap him to a table and pry his plating off to examine his internals. He’d managed to get a hand into the face of one of his captors that day, fingers digging into its organic eyes, and all he’d gotten for that was his arm chopped off.

The captors had been more careful after that. Deadlock would have taken any opportunity they gave him, but they left him alone after that day, behind cell bars too thick for him to get out of, only paying attention to him to toss tiny cups of half-processed energon sludge through the gaps between the bars.

Deadlock was a realist. There were two possible outcomes to this situation: that he would die of systems failure from the low-quality energon that he wasn’t getting enough of, or he would make a move and the captors would retaliate with a blade through his spark.

**

The organics _threw _someone into the next cell. Long ago, in another life, Deadlock would have cringed at the sound of plating being crushed against the stone floor, and at the sound of dripping energon that followed it.

The other bot immediately began to climb to his feet, and Deadlock decided that they were worth an idle assessment. He turned his head and saw, through the bars between his cell and the next, a small frame, not quite as battered as his own, emblazoned with an ugly square badge and optics that glowed Autobot blue.

Deadlock turned away. He could tell that the Autobot was still staring at him, though. Deadlock heard him limp the few steps toward the bars. He knew what was going to happen in this bot’s mind: he would see Deadlock’s badge and be angry, then he would recognize Deadlock’s face and be afraid.

“Hi,” the Autobot said. “I’m Hot Rod.” Deadlock recalibrated his assessment: Hot Rod either had damaged optics or he was an idiot.

Hot Rod eased himself down to sit on the floor, right next to the bars that separated them from each other. Deadlock could have reached out and strangled him if he’d wanted to.

“I already know who you are,” Hot Rod said. Idiot, then.

Still, though, Hot Rod was the only person who had even attempted to speak to Deadlock in quite a while. “Then you know you shouldn’t be sitting so close.”

“Maybe,” Hot Rod said, and _that _was enough to get Deadlock to look at him again. He was leaning heavily against the back wall and had a piece of broken-off plating pressed against a leaking wound in his midsection as a makeshift patch. Deadlock hadn’t expected that any Autobot would know that trick. “But,” Hot Rod continued, “You’re the only person I’ve seen here who hasn’t actually tried to hurt me yet, so I was thinking that we might be able to put aside our differences until we find a way out of here.”

Even here, Deadlock would have laughed in most Autobots’ faces had they suggested that. But something about Hot Rod, about the way he’d already been struggling to his feet when they’d closed the cell door behind him, or the way he’d said “Maybe” like he understood the danger Deadlock posed, or the back alley hack patch job that Ratchet would have been horrified to see, made him instead keep his gaze on Hot Rod and say, “What do you have in mind?”

**

The captors were more interested in Hot Rod than they were in Deadlock.

Deadlock was still mostly sure that he was going to die from their negligence. But he was more sure that one of these days, Hot Rod was going to die on that operating table and leave Deadlock alone once again.

Today, the captors brought him back, and as usual, they threw him on the floor. This time, unlike the last dozen, Hot Rod didn’t immediately get up.

Deadlock used his remaining arm to shuffle closer to the bars between their two cells. He looked at the unmoving pile of energon-splattered limbs and flickering biolights that was Hot Rod and cursed the aliens who had taken his arm and his blasters and made it so he couldn’t get any closer.

“Hot Rod?” he called, modulating the quiver of worry out of his voice at the last second.

“Hey.” Hot Rod sounded terrible, like there was a leak stalling his vocalizer. He started to move though, levering himself off the floor to crawl his way over to Deadlock.

They’d never been this close before, Deadlock realized as Hot Rod lay back down on the floor of his cell, near enough to touch.

“I saw that window again today,” Hot Rod said, lying still on the floor, with flickering optics and energon leaking from half a dozen places on his frame. “I’m pretty sure we’re still close to the planet where they captured me. Probably trying to kidnap more of us, but it means we might not have to make it too far if we can get one of the shuttles –” His vocalizer glitched and he coughed, spitting energon onto Deadlock’s half-crushed knee.

“Shut up,” Deadlock said, reaching his hand out toward Hot Rod’s chest and covering the worst of the wounds with his palm. Hot Rod had been bringing him whatever information he could glean about the ship and their captors when they took him out of his cell each day, but it would be no good to either of them if Hot Rod passed out and died of energon loss, too weak for self-repair.

Hod Rod nodded. Then he moved, and Deadlock was about to snap at him for aggravating his injuries when he realized that all Hot Rod was doing was shuffling himself a little bit closer to Deadlock, leaning his head against Deadlock’s hip where it was pressed against the bars.

Deadlock supposed he’d allow it.

He did what little he could for Hot Rod’s injuries while Hot Rod dozed on and off next to him. Hot Rod’s frame had stopped actively leaking energon, at least, by the time he awoke fully, a little before the time that the guards always came to get him.

“Maybe we can get a signal out, somehow,” Hot Rod said. “That’s probably easier than stealing a shuttle, and more likely to work if there are still Cybertronians somewhere around here.”

Deadlock didn’t respond; didn’t want to acknowledge Hot Rod’s false hope. He watched as Hot Rod rose to a sitting position and gave the cell door a long look before his optics once again met Deadlock’s.

Deadlock was thinking about how there was almost no space between them and then, a moment later, there wasn’t any. Hot Rod slipped one hand into Deadlock’s and the other around Deadlock’s waist, and Deadlock leaned forward, and then they were kissing through the bars of the cage. Deadlock pushed as close as he could, the bars of the cage digging deep enough to dent, as his lips met Hot Rod’s. He squeezed Hot Rod’s hand and wished that he would never have to let go. Hot Rod’s kisses were desperate and tender all at once, and Deadlock shut off his optics, letting Hot Rod take over his world.

Then the door at the end of the hallway banged open and Deadlock and Hot Rod broke away simultaneously, the immediate loss of contact leaving Deadlock’s lips tingling. Deadlock looked away, as usual, as the aliens yanked Hot Rod back out. When they were gone, Deadlock looked down at his hand, which was cold from the memory of Hot Rod’s plating.

Into empty air where Hot Rod’s hand should have been, he used the hand to say, with practiced chirolinguistic motions, _you better come back._

**Author's Note:**

> i miiiiight continue this someday.


End file.
